It was a story that seemed to reinforce stereotypes of President Donald Trump: On a visit to Japan, he was handed a box of food for a ritual feeding of carp, and after doling out a few spoons’ worth, he got impatient and dumped the rest of the box
It was a story that seemed to reinforce stereotypes of President Donald Trump: On a visit to Japan, he was handed a box of food for a ritual feeding of carp, and after doling out a few spoons’ worth, he got impatient and dumped the rest of the box all at once.
Initial reports of the food dump — like this early video from CNN — suggested that Trump acted on his own. This pushed the late-night Twitterverse and blogosphere into a tizzy. The website Jezebel posted a story headlined, “ Big Stupid Baby Dumps Load Of Fish Food On Japanese Koi Pond.“
One problem: Trump didn’t just decide to dump his food on his own. Video shows he was following the lead of his host at the koi pond event, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Here’s a gif and a video (and another video) showing how events actually transpired — first Abe, then Trump.
President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe feed carp at a koi pond before their working lunch at Akasaka Palace in Tokyo, on Nov. 6,2017. (AP)
Several journalists took to Twitter to correct the record as soon as it became clear, including Bloomberg’s Nicholas Wadhams, the Washington Post ’s David Nakamura, and freelance journalist Yashar Ali, who went so far as to delete one of his previous posts and explain why.
